Yale University has a system of fourteen residential colleges with which all Yale undergraduate students and many faculty are affiliated. Inaugurated in 1933, the college system is considered the defining feature of undergraduate life in Yale College, and the residential colleges serve as the residence halls and social hubs for most undergraduates. Construction and programming for eight of the original ten colleges were funded by educational philanthropist Edward S. Harkness. Yale was, along with Harvard, one of the first universities in the United States to establish a residential college system.